


birds in winter

by heartofstanding



Category: 15th Century CE RPF
Genre: Angst, Children's Stories, Cute Kids, Domestic, F/M, Gen, Ghosts, Hallucinations, Mental Health Issues, look it's henry vi it's complicated, or - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:41:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28569432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartofstanding/pseuds/heartofstanding
Summary: Henry's son wants a story about a duck.
Relationships: Edward of Lancaster | Prince of Wales & Henry VI of England, Henry VI/Marguerite d'Anjou | Henry VI/Margaret of Anjou
Comments: 10
Kudos: 8





	birds in winter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheMalhamBird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMalhamBird/gifts).



> I think this can read on its own but it contains references to [The Hope of Spring](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18346850) and Henry's chapter in [the witch's death](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24860197/chapters/60673963).
> 
> Back in May 2019, TheMalhamBird sent me this: "Nice things for Henry VI: sitting small Edward of Westminster on his lap and telling him bedtime stories that uncle Humphrey used to tell him". This didn't turn out to be that nice but still. Also, a quick shout-out to bxzukhov and others on the Histories discord for making me think a lot more about Henry, Margaret and Edward than I normally do.
> 
> As in another fic of mine, Edward of Lancaster is referred to as "Neddy" - which is not necessarily period-accurate but I tried the period-accurate equivalent "Nedkin" and I couldn't quite manage it.

Henry is cold and the shades are pressing in around him. His father’s cold, silver-gilt face is in the window’s reflection. His aunt kneels at his feet and stares up pleadingly at him, her neck bound with a collar of pale roses. The thorns have pricked her and made her bleed, her blood stains the petals red and runs towards the swell of her breasts. His uncles sigh and pace, except one – the one who died the year Henry was born, his face pale and blurred though his marble armour gleams. His mother is in the gardens below, her body bending towards people who are not him. Suffolk opens his mouth, unable to voice his honey-coated words, and turns away, his face ashamed. His head is held in his hands. Henry’s mother’s mother, fat and grief-stricken, is huddled in the corner, her terrible eyes covered. His mad grandfather hides behind her.

They do not mean ill. Henry knows this. His father’s gaze is cold, his eyes sharp and full of judgement. But he is only disappointed that Henry has failed to love England and France as much as he did. Henry’s uncles are the same. His mother is lonely, Suffolk guilty, his aunt longs for forgiveness. Henry prays for deliverance – that they may be delivered into God’s grace, that he may be delivered from them – but they stay.

‘Papa, Papa,’ a voice cries out.

Henry blinks, finds tears dripping coldly down his nose. The shades withdraw – his aunt rising swiftly to her feet once his uncle of Gloucester takes her hand – and Neddy is here, clambering onto Henry’s lap. His son is solid and warm. His strong fingers grasp Henry’s tightly.

‘Look, Papa!’ Neddy says. ‘Look!’

He waves something in Henry’s face. Henry squints. It’s a large duck made from velvet and stuffed with wool. He smiles.

‘It’s lovely,’ he says. ‘A wonderful duck.’

‘Yes!’ Neddy says. ‘A duck.’

‘A duck,’ Henry says, agreeing.

They say nothing else. Margaret has come with their son, her fingers brush against Henry’s shoulder. They feel like burning. Neddy looks just like her, Henry can find no trace of himself on their son’s face. Perhaps it is for the best. He would find it hard to love without question, without doubt, someone who was too like himself. And Margaret is strong and beautiful.

‘I don’t know any stories about ducks,’ Neddy says.

‘No?’ Margaret says, her voice amused. ‘You know the story of the Swan Knight though, don’t you?’

Henry lifts his head, stares at Margaret’s dark eyes. The shades have come back: his father, his father’s brothers and their mother. Their mother, Henry’s grandmother, is tall beyond measure, dressed in a cloak and hood made of swan feathers. She looms over him, her eyes flame-like, and hisses. Margaret does not see her, does not hear her.

‘Yes,’ Neddy says.

‘And you descended from the Swan Knight from your father,’ she says.

Neddy’s badge is the swan, like Henry’s father. Like his uncle of Gloucester. Sometimes it seems like an ill choice – or worse, an ill omen.

‘But he’s not a duck,’ Neddy says.

‘No,’ Margaret says. ‘He is not. But swans are more noble than a duck.’

‘I want to be a duck,’ Neddy says.

Henry laughs, the shades step back. His hand rises, pats his son’s dark hair and his son looks up at him, face splitting open in a grin.

‘Papa,’ he says. ‘Do you have any stories?’

‘Of ducks?’ he says.

He frowns, tries to think. He remembers feeding the ducks with his uncle of Gloucester. He hears his uncle’s voice telling him stories of four brother-knights who travelled in the wilds and served their king. He doesn’t know where his uncle got those stories from – parts remind him of the stories about Arthur and his knights of the Round Table but they are not the same. There were no ducks in those stories, at least none that Henry remembers. Perhaps Gloucester made the stories up. Perhaps Henry can make up a story to please his son.

‘Once,’ he says, ‘there was a brave little duck.’

‘What was his name?’

Henry hesitates, he doesn’t know.

‘Neddy, perhaps?’ Margaret says.

‘Like me?’ Neddy gasps.

‘Yes,’ Henry says. ‘He was called Neddy. And he lived in a large pond with other ducks but he was different from them—’

‘How?’ Neddy says.

Henry closes his eyes. Had he been the same, interrupting his uncle to ask questions? He cannot remember, he doesn’t think so.

‘He wants – different things,’ Henry says. ‘He wants to leave the pond and find – find—’

‘Adventure?’ Neddy says.

 _No, peace,_ Henry wants to say. Adventures have never sounded very nice to him. But his son’s eyes are bright, his small hands clutching his velvet duck tightly.

‘Yes,’ Henry says. ‘He wants to find adventure. One day, he had enough of waiting and wanting and leaves – he takes off, wings stretching wide, and flies. He finds a great, big river and…’

He keeps talking and somehow forms a story with Neddy and Margaret’s help. The duck makes friends with a one-eyed swan and stops a colony of beavers from damming the river. At the end of the story, the duck is a feted hero that somehow finds himself swimming into the brook that runs near the place the four brother-knights have made their home. Henry can almost see them standing on a grassy verge, one running to fetch bread for the duck – they will make this duck their friend and ally.

Neddy is frowning when he finishes. ‘Papa,’ he says. ‘Who are these knights?’

Henry blinks. His eyes feel heavy. Has he never told Neddy the stories of the brother-knights?

‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Wonderful people. I will tell you their stories soon.’

If he can remember them properly. Neddy frowns. Margaret’s fingers press down on Henry’s shoulder.

‘It’s time you went to bed,’ Margaret says. ‘You were due for a nap some time ago.’

Henry doesn’t know if she’s talking to him or Neddy but the nurse takes Neddy off his lap and leaves with him. Margaret moves around him, taking the seat opposite and tucking her skirts under her. Her fingers lay on her lap, her golden rings winking at him.

‘That was a nice story,’ she says. ‘You’re quite good at making up stories to tell him.’

‘I—’ Henry says.

Margaret smiles at him, so patient, so kind. He knows she is burning with determination and righteous fury. Sometimes he feels the heat of her scorching him. They are an ill-matched pair but he loves her and she is gentle with him.

‘There are people who are better at it than I am,’ he says at last. ‘My uncle, for one.’

Her nostrils flare, she looks away. _Which uncle_ , she will be thinking, _they are all dead._ They are, and yet their shades linger, haunting Henry. He reaches for Margaret, takes her hand. Her thumb runs over the back of his hand and he is burning again, a respite from the chill of his ghosts.

**Author's Note:**

> Henry's shades:  
>  _His father, with a silver-gilt face_ : Henry V, who died when Henry VI was only 9 months and without ever seeing his son. His original tomb effigy had a silver-gilt head that was later stolen.  
>  _His kneeling aunt, with a collar of pale roses_ \- Eleanor Cobham, who was married to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, accused of witchcraft and imprisoned until her death. She was probably the aunt Henry VI was closest too and knew best.  
>  _His uncles_ \- Gloucester, John, Duke of Bedford and Thomas, Duke of Clarence. Clarence is the ghost who died months before Henry's birth, his armour is based off his effigy in Canterbury Cathedral.  
>  _His mother_ \- Catherine de Valois. Around the time Henry was ten, she married Owen Tudor and left Henry's household. It's extremely difficult to know what their relationship was like after that but I figured it was reasonable that Henry could have been a little resentful about her secret, second family.  
>  _Suffolk_ \- William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, who had been Henry's favourite and mentor until he was forced into exile. He never made it to exile, however, and was murdered by beheading.  
>  _Henry’s mother’s mother and his mad grandfather_ \- Isabeau of Bavaria, who Henry met when he was coronated King of France, and her husband, Charles VI of France, who died when Henry was 11 months old (two months after Henry V's death).  
>  _Henry's grandmother, with a hood and cloak of swan feathers_ \- Henry's paternal grandmother, Mary de Bohun. The swan badge was the symbol of the Bohun family and it was through her marriage to Henry IV that the swan badge was associated with the House of Lancaster. It was most notably used by Henry V, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester and, eventually, by Edward of Lancaster (Neddy).
> 
> If you've read most of my fics, you'll probably be unsurprised to learn that, in my head, the ghosts reflect what Henry thinks of the person rather than who they actually were.


End file.
